Black Box From Missing EgyptAir Flight 804 Is Said to Be Detected

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A French soldier aboard an aircraft searching in May for debris from the crashed EgyptAir Flight 804 over the Mediterranean Sea.CreditAlexandre Groyer/French Navy, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

PARIS — A French naval vessel fitted with sophisticated underwater sensors has picked up a signal believed to have emanated from one of two data recorders from EgyptAir Flight 804, Egyptian and French officials said on Wednesday.

The flight crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on May 19 while en route to Cairo from Paris, killing all 66 people on board. Data signals, and the discovery of wreckage and human remains, have suggested a rapid loss of control just before the crash.

But the cause of the disaster remains a mystery. No terrorist group has claimed responsibility, though the Egyptian aviation minister, Sherif Fathy, has said that terrorism is a more likely cause for the crash than a technical failure. The flight recorders will be critical for determining whether the crash was the result of a deliberate act or an accident.

The vessel that picked up the signal, the survey ship Laplace, has been taking part in the search for the data recorders from the Airbus A320 since last week.

On Wednesday, it “received through its search equipment signals from the seabed of the wreckage search area,” according to a statement from the Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee, which is leading the inquiry into the crash. The signals are “assumed to be from one of the data recorders,” the committee added.

A few hours later, the French military’s high command said on Twitter: “The search vessel Laplace has detected a beacon from one flight recorder.”

The detection of the signal was also confirmed by Sébastien Barthe, a spokesman for the French agency that investigates aviation accidents, which is cooperating with Egyptian officials on the inquiry.

Another research vessel, the John Lethbridge, is being prepared to join the search team within a week and to retrieve the recorders if they are found, officials said. The vessel is operated by Deep Open Search, a company based in Mauritius.

The search for the EgyptAir plane has narrowed to an area within a three-mile radius of the point in the Mediterranean where satellite data indicate that the plane probably went down. That area is about 180 miles north of the Egyptian coast.

Locator signals emitted by flight data and cockpit voice recorders, also known as black boxes, can be picked up even when they are deep underwater.

The battery-powered beacons are certified to emit a distinct metronomic “ping” for about 30 days after a crash, which means the EgyptAir plane’s black boxes are likely to fall silent around the middle of June — a deadline that has added urgency to the search.

Two fleeting radio signals from one of the plane’s three emergency locator transmitters were captured by European and American satellites minutes after the plane was lost from radar on May 19, officials confirmed last week.

While those signals did not include precise geographic coordinates, experts were able to calculate a likely point of impact based on the data received from multiple satellites, said Steven Lett, an American diplomat who heads the secretariat of the International Cospas-Sarsat Program, a maritime and aviation distress-call network based in Montreal.

The data gleaned from the satellites was shared with Egyptian and French investigators, including the crew of the Laplace, which arrived in the search zone late Tuesday, the French Navy said. The first signals from the data recorder beacons were detected within hours.

The underwater listening devices being used by the French search team are capable of detecting the beacons from a distance of up to 2.5 miles. Officials said it could still take several days before their precise location on the sea floor can be determined.

Searchers will then use the underwater robots and sonar equipment aboard the John Lethbridge to study the distribution of the wreckage and to guide the salvage operation.

Provided the black boxes are undamaged, the information they contain — audio recordings from the cockpit as well as detailed performance data from the flight’s final moments — will help crash investigators piece together the cause of the disaster.

So far, investigators have had to rely on a mix of incomplete air traffic control data showing that the plane swerved abruptly before disappearing from radar, as well as a series of seven automated messages pointing to a possible fire on board. But while these clues suggest a sudden onboard emergency, experts have said that is not enough to establish whether this was the result of a catastrophic technical failure or a possible terrorist act.